Whumptober 2019- Hallucination
by Frankie McStein
Summary: Magnum had watched in horror as the car went off the road, down the cliff, vanished into the ocean. Higgins has been in the trunk.


It was so dark. She wasn't even sure if her eyes were open or closed. She tried blinking, just to try to figure it out, but the darkness didn't change. And she was so cold. She wanted to wrap her arms around herself, but there was no room. All she could hear was her own gasping breaths. The noise seemed to ring in her ears even as it died away completely between one gasp and the next.

She stretched out a hand, desperate to feel something other than the water that was lapping around her, shifting against her body with every shuddering inhale. She pressed her fingers against the smooth metal, welcoming the pain as the salt moved over the cuts on her knuckles, trying to ground herself, trying to tell herself it was just a box.

'_You're not in a void,'_ she thought, carefully focusing on every syllable of every word. '_It's a small tin can, with heavily salted water. You're fine.'_ But she didn't believe her own mind. She could feel the space stretching around her even as she pushed with all her strength against the metal a few inches away. She could feel a weight pressing down onto her even as she floated in the water beneath her.

Her eyes squeezed shut as a purple light started to grow in front of her. She didn't know what it was. She didn't want to know what it was. She wanted it to go away. She wanted to be out of this death trap. She wanted to be warm and surrounded by light. Real light, the kind you could actually see by. Not this purple haze that was dripping and swirling but not illuminating anything.

"_I'm just saying, you didn't have to hit him that hard, Jay."_

Her breath was driven out of her like she'd been punched in the gut.

"Richard?" Her own voice was so weak, trembling and hoarse from the screaming.

"_He'll probably need surgery to fix his nose."_ There was laughter in Richard's voice. She remembered the conversation. They had been on a date, some quiet little restaurant, miles away from HQ; they still hadn't reported their relationship and needed to be careful who saw them. Richard had excused himself and, almost immediately, a strange man had slipped into his chair.

"_I'm not too sure how we're going to explain this, you know."_

Higgins gave a sob as she remembered how the night had played out. How the man had called her a whore as he'd left the table. How he had followed them outside. How he'd sucker punched Richard and grabbed at her, tearing her dress. How she had felt the bone of his nose break beneath her hand. How the look of pride had never left Richard's face, even as he'd been complaining about how hard it would be to carry on hiding their relationship now.

How Richard was dead now and couldn't possibly be in here with her.

"I'm always with you, Jay-Bird."

She couldn't help it; she screamed as he spoke in her ear, flailing as she tried to move away and reach for him at the same time. The water splashed, burning her eyes, flooding into her nose and ears, making her gag as it hit her throat.

"My poor little Jay-Bird," Richard crooned, and she could _feel_ his hand on her face even as she cringed away.

"You're dead." She let the words drop into the silence, needing to say them, needing to hear them. "You're not here. You're dead."

"I've always been right here." His hand was on the back of her neck, stroking gently, fingertips skimming her skin. She moved her head, trying to get closer, trying to get away. She didn't even feel the tears trickling down her cheeks.

…

"Tell me again, one more time. How did this happen?" Katsumoto looked almost angry. Magnum didn't blame him, not this time. He was right to be angry.

"We were looking for Archer. Higgins found a title deed in his dead sister's name so we decided to check it out."

The whole house had been set up like an upmarket spa. Raked sand instead of a driveway. Artificial streams and waterfalls. Massage beds, a flotation tank, a sauna, a swimming pool.

"We thought we might find something that could tell us where he was hiding."

"So you broke in." It wasn't a question, and Magnum didn't try to deny it.

They had broken in. And gone hunting around, looking for a clue. They hadn't expected to find Archer himself, chilling on a sunbed. He had heard them coming, hidden behind a door, taken a swing at Magnum with _something_ that had connected hard with the side of his head and sent him reeling.

"I yelled at… I yelled at Higgins to go after him."

And she had, chasing Archer down the corridor and disappearing from Magnum's blurred vision. By the time he'd shaken off the blow, pulled himself to his feet, and gone after them, he hadn't been able to hear their footsteps. But he had heard Higgins yell, a cry of pain that had made him force his spinning head to stop messing around and get back in the game.

"I checked each room I came to, and there was no sign of either of them. And then I heard the car start up."

And he'd run, making it to the courtyard in time to see Archer's car go tearing through the gates. Magnum's head had been full of thoughts of the state Archer's last victim had been in by the time she'd been found, of how Higgins fit his victim profile, of how easy it would be to fit her in the trunk of the blue SUV Archer was driving.

"So you followed him?" Katsumoto was sounding sympathetic now, like he thought being angry with Magnum wasn't fair. Like he thought Mangum's feelings were somehow deserving of consideration.

Magnum glanced up to see all three of them, Katsumoto, Rick, and T.C., all looking at him. They all looked slightly shocked, although Katsumoto's professionalism was helping him to hide his reaction well. It was his eyes that gave him away. Rick and T.C. weren't even trying to hide their feelings.

"I shouldn't have gotten so close. Higgins is always…" The words froze in his throat. "Was. She..._was_ always…" Past tense. Because Archer had driven his car off the road. Magnum had watched in horror as the dark blue Volkswagen had rolled and flipped its way down the side of the cliff, hitting the edge, sailing into the air, and then crashing down onto the rocks below before dropping into the ocean.

Only the thought that it would be suicide had stopped him from trying to run down the cliff after it.

His training had kicked in, years of repetition serving him well, and his call to nine-one-one was concise and to the point; one SUV beneath the surface of the ocean, two occupants, both presumed dead.

…

She wasn't sure if she was awake or not anymore. There was an odd, light feeling in her head that was making it hard to concentrate. The panic that had been overwhelming at first, that had pushed her to drive her fists into the metal above her over and over, that had seen her rolling in the water and thrashing at the metal at her sides, had drained away.

The pain at hearing Richard next to her, the fear at hearing Richard next to her, had vanished too. Part of her wanted him to come back again. Part of her hated him for coming back again.

"You know you're slipping into hypothermia, right?"

Magnum's voice was so loud, so shockingly loud, that she flinched away. It felt wrong, such a loud noise in such a quiet space. And that's what it was; space. She knew that now. She wasn't in a mental box, or in a void, but in the universe. Floating like so much debris, carried on the echo of a solar wind, dead and alive, somehow nothing and everything.

"The water's too cold "

His voice was almost clinical, like he was giving an after-action report. She tried to reach out and pat his face, but her fingers were numb from the cold and she missed. Or she moved right through him. She wasn't sure which. Could cosmic flotsam interact with people on the physical plane?

"You need to get out, Higgy."

Concern now, shining like a beam of pure energy. She could see it, bright red, pulsing, like the beacon from a lighthouse. She could feel it wrapping around her and was surprised to realise it wasn't hot. It felt like ice, like the chill a body would experience coming on the heels of an adrenaline rush. But she didn't have a body, not anymore. She was astral. She was celestial jetsam, floating between electrons and protons, caught in the orbit of stars.

"You can't give up, girl."

She wasn't giving up. She just wasn't trying to fight anymore. Why should she? Fighting meant being cold and scared and in pain. Fighting meant Richard was dead and Magnum was a hallucination. Fighting meant she was trapped in the dark, cold, and alone.

"Don't leave me, Juliet."

"Come and save me then." She meant to snap the words, to fill them with all the fear and pain and panic and loneliness that she had felt since getting trapped. Instead they came out like a plea, like she was begging him to save her. And suddenly, like a freight train jumping the tracks, she was back in her own body, back in the damned tin can, back in the freezing water. And she was barely shivering. And she knew it was bad, knew it was so very bad. Her vision of Magnum had been right to be worried.

"Please," she whispered, not sure if she was talking to Magnum, or herself, or the universe. "Please come and save me."

…

They hadn't spoken in a while. They were all sitting in the ground, backs resting against the side of the Ferrari. The specialists had arrived a while back, setting up ropes and harnesses and whatever else they needed to get down the cliff; the rocks were too dangerous to risk a boat. It had taken a lot to get them to agree to attempt to recover the bodies; both Katsumoto and Rick had called in a lot of favors to make it happen. The powers that be were happy to assume death of both the driver and his passenger but, between the look on Magnum's face and the feelings swirling in their own guts, none of them had been able to let it drop. T.C. had threatened to take some old army buddies over the area in his chopper rather than let Higgins spend eternity in the trunk of the man who had murdered her.

Magnum hadn't added anything to the conversations that had swirled around him, standing in silence and looking out over the ocean he loved so much as if he couldn't believe it had betrayed him, taken something so precious from him.

And now they were all just sitting and waiting to see if they were going to get to bury their Higgy or if they would have to settle for an empty coffin.

So when Katsumoto came hurrying over, eyes wide, shouting that there was only one body in the car, none of them knew how to react for a second.

"Archer's in the driver's seat. There's no one else in the car. The trunk is empty."

Magnum scrambled to his feet.

"There's no way she got out of the trunk without me seeing her."

"So what?"

"She must be somewhere in the house. I must have missed her." There was guilt in his voice, heavy and thick, but also a furious energy. T.C. ran for his van, Rick hot on heels, and Katsumoto hurried around to the passenger side of the Ferrari. He had hardly even closed the door when Magnum pressed down on the gas and the car leaped forward, as if the engine knew how much of a rush its driver was in.

By the time the Island Hoppers van had reached the house, Magnum and Katsumoto had cleared five of the rooms on the first floor. Rick and T.C. ran past them to the stairs, heading for the gymnasium and its shower area.

A shout from Magnum had them all running to him. He was struggling with the flotation tank.

"This was open when we came through, I'm sure of it. And it won't open." He was straining at the lid, trying to force the latch. They all joined him, tucking their fingertips under the small lip on the lid.

"On three. One, two, three!" The countdown was rapid, but they were all ready. With the four of them lifting, putting every ounce of force they could into it, the broken latch gave and the lid of the tank flew upward.

For the space of an entire heartbeat, none of them reacted. Higgins was there, floating in the blood-stained water. A cut on her head told them how Archer had gotten her into the tank. Cuts on her hands and dents in the metal told them how desperately she had tried to escape. Her lips were blue, her skin ghostly white, and she hadn't reacted to the tank opening at all.

And then they burst into motion. Magnum and T.C. lifted her as carefully as they could while Rick ran to find a blanket and Katsumoto dialed for an ambulance. The jostling disturbed her, and she opened her eyes as she was being wrapped in both Magnum and T.C.'s arms. They held her on their laps in an effort to stop her from getting any colder than she already was. Magnum had to lower his head at an awkward angle to hear what she was saying.

"I knew you'd save me."


End file.
